英语听书《白鲸记》第699期(在线收听) |
It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. 于是,很明白,从骨相学上说来,在大鲸活着而毫无损伤的时候,它的头就全然是一种使人迷惑的东西。 As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. 至于它的真正的头脑,你根本就一点也找不到什么迹象,一点也觉察不到。
The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. 跟凡是伟大的一切东西一样,大鲸也是对人间戴起一副假面具的。
If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, 如果你拿掉了它脑壳里那些鲸油块,然后,打它后边(也就是它那隆起的地方)看一看它的后形,
you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of view. 那么,它那跟你从同样角度、同样观点来看人类的后脑而结果却是完全相似的情况,一定会教你大吃一惊。
Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would involuntarily confound it with them; 老实说,如果把这只倒置的脑壳(把它缩得跟人类的脑壳一般大小)放在装有许多人类脑壳的一只器皿里,你准会不自觉地把它跟人头混淆不清;
and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say—This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. 同时,看到它脑顶那地方的凹处后,你准会照骨相学的术语说——这家伙是毫无自尊心,毫无虔敬心的了。
And by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, 而你把这些否定的断语,跟它那巨大的躯干和威力的肯定的事实一起考虑一下的话,你自己就会对那具有最高的威力的道理所在,
you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. 出乎意料地得出虽然不是最痛快的然而却是最正确的概念来。
But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper brain, 不过,如果你从原来的鲸脑的相当容积上,
you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea for you. 还认为不能对它获得适当的轮廓的话,那么,我给你另外出个主意。
If you attentively regard almost any quadruped's spine, 如果你对差不多任何一种四足动物的背脊都留心地注意一下,
you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. 那么,就它那脊骨跟一串结在项链里的许多缩小的脑壳,全都跟发育不全的正式的脑壳极相仿佛这一点说来,又要叫你大吃一惊了。 |
原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/syysdw/bjj/434852.html |